THE BEST Roland

Digital musical instrument maker Roland introduces us to Jong Chan Kim, who came up with a hypermodern design for a grand piano. Since digital pianos don’t depend on acoustic properties, he was able to come up with this futuristic low-poly design. The Facet has powerful speakers built into its base, and a flat screen for sheet music.

Techmoan shows off some more more awesomely weird retro tech. The Roland MT-80S was a compact music player that played back MIDI files using songs stored on a 3.5 inch floppy disk. Since it was designed for learning music, it also packed a digital metronome.

The Roland TR-08 looks and works exactly the same as its grandfather, the TR-808, but in a much more portable form. You can even power it with batteries. It doesn’t sound quite as crunchy as the original, but for its price and size it’s a hell of a deal.

The spiritual successor to the legendary TR-808, the TR-8 Rhythm Performer combines the distinct sound of the TR-808 and TR-909 with a ton of new features for the modern musician. Part of Roland’s new AIRA series.